A Place Called Freedom (1995)

18

JAY AND LIZZIE MOVED INTO THE CHAPEL STREET house on the day after the wedding. For the first time they ate supper alone, with no one present but the servants. For the first time they went upstairs hand in hand, undressed together, and got into their own bed. For the first time they woke up together in their own house.

They were naked: Lizzie had persuaded Jay to take off his nightshirt last night. Now she pressed herself against him and stroked his body, arousing him; then she rolled on top of him.

She could tell he was surprised. “Do you mind?” she said.

He did not reply, but started to move inside her.

When it was over she said: “I shock you, don’t I?”

After a pause he said: “Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s not … normal for the woman to get on top.”

“I’ve no idea what people think is normal—I’ve never been in bed with a man before.”

“I should hope not!”

“But how do you know what’s normal?”

“Never you mind.”

He had probably seduced a few seamstresses and shopgirls who were overawed by him and let him take charge. Lizzie had no experience but she knew what she wanted and believed in taking it. She was not going to change her ways. She was enjoying it too much. Jay was, too, even though he was shocked: she could tell by his vigorous movements and the pleased look on his face afterward.

She got up and went naked to the window. The weather was cold but sunny. The church bells were ringing muffled because it was a hanging day: one or more criminals would be executed this morning. Half the city’s workingpeople would take an unofficial day off, and many of them would flock to Tyburn, the crossroads at the northwestern corner of London where the gallows stood, to see the spectacle. It was the kind of occasion when rioting could break out, so Jay’s regiment would be on alert all day. However, Jay had one more day’s leave.

She turned to face him and said: “Take me to the hanging.”

He looked disapproving. “A gruesome request.”

“Don’t tell me it’s no place for a lady.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“I know that rich and poor women and men go to see it.”

“But why do you want to go?”

That was a good question. She had mixed feelings about it. It was shameful to make entertainment of death, and she knew she would be disgusted with herself afterward. But her curiosity was overwhelming. “I want to know what it’s like,” she said. “How do the condemned people behave? Do they weep, or pray, or gibber with fear? And what about the spectators? What is it like to watch a human life come to an end?”

She had always been this way. The first time she saw a deer shot, when she was only nine or ten years old, she had watched enthralled as the keeper gralloched it, taking out its entrails. She had been fascinated by the multiple stomachs and had insisted on touching the flesh to see what it felt like. It was warm and slimy. The beast was two or three months pregnant, and the keeper had shown her the tiny fetus in the transparent womb. None of it had revolted her: it was too interesting.

She understood perfectly why people flocked to see the spectacle. She also understood why others were revolted by the thought of watching it. But she was part of the inquisitive group.

Jay said: “Perhaps we could hire a room overlooking the gallows—that’s what a lot of people do.”

But Lizzie felt that would mute the experience. “Oh, no—I want to be in the crowd!” she protested.

“Women of our class don’t do that.”

“Then I’ll dress as a man.”

He looked doubtful.

“Jay, don’t make faces at me! You were glad enough to take me down the coal mine dressed as a man.”

“It is a bit different for a married woman.”

“If you tell me that all adventures are over just because we’re married, I shall run away to sea.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She grinned at him and jumped onto the bed. “Don’t be an old curmudgeon.” She bounced up and down. “Let’s go to the hanging.”

He could not help laughing. “All right,” he said.

“Bravo!”

She performed her daily chores rapidly. She told the cook what to buy for dinner; decided which rooms the housemaids would clean; told the groom she would not be riding today; accepted an invitation for the two of them to dine with Captain Marlborough and his wife next Wednesday; postponed an appointment with a milliner; and took delivery of twelve brassbound trunks for the voyage to Virginia.

Then she put on her disguise.

* * *

The street known as Tyburn Street or Oxford Street was thronged with people. The gallows stood at the end of the street, outside Hyde Park. Houses with a view of the scaffold were crowded with wealthy spectators who had rented rooms for the day. People stood shoulder to shoulder on the stone wall of the park. Hawkers moved through the crowds selling hot sausages and tots of gin and printed copies of what they said were the dying speeches of the condemned.

Mack held Cora’s hand and pushed through the crowd. He had no desire to watch people getting killed but Cora had insisted on going. Mack just wanted to spend all his free time with Cora. He liked holding her hand, kissing her lips whenever he wanted to, and touching her body in odd moments. He liked just to look at her. He enjoyed her devil-may-care attitude and her rough language and the wicked look in her eye. So he went with her to the hanging.

A friend of hers was going to be hanged. Her name was Dolly Macaroni, and she was a brothel keeper, but her crime was forgery. “What did she forge, anyway?” Mack said as they approached the gallows.

“A bank draft. She changed the amount from eleven pounds to eighty pounds.”

“Where did she get a draft for eleven pounds?”

“From Lord Massey, She says he owed her more.”

“She ought to have been transported, not hanged.”

“They nearly always hang forgers.”

They were as close as they could get, about twenty yards away. The gallows was a crude wooden structure, just three posts with crossbeams. Five ropes hung from the beams, their ends tied in nooses ready for the condemned. A chaplain stood nearby, with a handful of official-looking men who were presumably law officers. Soldiers with muskets kept the crowd at a distance.

Gradually Mack became aware of a roaring sound from farther down Tyburn Street. “What’s that noise?” he asked Cora.

“They’re coming.”

First there was a squad of peace officers on horseback, led by a personage who was presumably the city marshal. Next were the constables, on foot and armed with clubs. Then came the tumbril, a high four-wheeled cart drawn by two plow horses. A company of javelin men brought up the rear, holding their pointed spears rigidly upright.

In the cart, sitting on what appeared to be coffins, their hands and arms bound with ropes, were five people: three men, a boy of about fifteen and a woman. “That’s Dolly,” Cora said, and she began to cry.

Mack stared in horrid fascination at the five who were to die. One of the men was drunk. The other two looked defiant. Dolly was praying aloud and the boy was crying.

The cart was driven under the scaffold. The drunk man waved to some friends, villainous-looking types, who stood at the front of the crowd. They shouted jokes and ribald comments: “Kind of the sheriff to invite you along!” and “I hope you’ve learned to dance!” and “Try that necklace on for size!” Dolly asked God’s forgiveness in a loud, clear voice. The boy cried: “Save me, Mama, save me, please!”

The two sober men were greeted by a group at the front of the crowd. After a moment Mack distinguished their accents as Irish. One of the condemned men shouted: “Don’t let the surgeons have me, boys!” There was a roar of assent from his friends.

“What are they talking about?” Mack asked Cora.

“He must be a murderer. The bodies of murderers belong to the Company of Surgeons. They cut them up to see what’s inside.”

Mack shuddered.

The hangman climbed on the cart. One by one he placed the nooses around their necks and drew them tight. None of them struggled or protested or tried to escape. It would have been useless, surrounded as they were by guards, but Mack thought he would have tried anyway.

The priest, a bald man in stained robes, got up on the cart and spoke to each of them in turn: just for a few moments to the drunk, four or five minutes with the other two men, and longer with Dolly and the boy.

Mack had heard that sometimes executions went wrong, and he began to hope it would happen this time. Ropes could break; the crowd had been known to swarm the scaffold and release the prisoners; the hangman might cut people down before they were dead. It was too awful to think these five living human beings would in a few moments be dead.

The priest finished his work. The hangman blindfolded the five people with strips of rag then got down, leaving only the condemned on the cart. The drunk man could not keep his balance and he stumbled and fell; and the noose began to strangle him. Dolly continued to pray loudly.

The hangman whipped the horses.

Lizzie heard herself scream: “No!”

The cart jerked and moved off.

The hangman lashed the horses again and they struggled to a trot. The cart was drawn from under the condemned people and, one by one, they fell to the extent of the ropes: first the drunk, already half dead; then the two Irishmen; then the weeping boy; and at last the woman, whose prayer was cut off in midsentence.

Lizzie stared at the five bodies dangling from the ropes, and she was filled with loathing for herself and the crowd around her.

They were not all dead. The boy, mercifully, seemed to have broken his neck instantly, as did the two Irishmen; but the drunk was still moving, and the woman, whose blindfold had slipped, stared out of open, terrified eyes as she slowly choked.

Lizzie buried her face in Jay’s shoulder.

She would have been glad to leave, but she forced herself to stay. She had wanted to see this and now she should stick it out until the end.

She opened her eyes again.

The drunk had expired, but the woman’s face worked in agony. The rowdy onlookers had fallen silent, stilled by the horror in front of them. Several minutes went by.

At last her eyes closed.

The sheriff stepped up to cut down the bodies, and that was when the trouble started.

The Irish group surged forward, trying to get past the guards to the scaffold. The constables fought back, and the javelin men joined in, stabbing at the Irish. Blood began to flow.

“I was afraid of this,” Jay said. “They want to keep their friends’ bodies out of the hands of the surgeons. Let’s get clear as fast as we can.”

Many around them had the same idea, but those at the back were trying to get closer and see what was happening. As some surged one way and some the other, fistfights broke out. Jay tried to force a way through. Lizzie stuck close to him. They found themselves up against an unbroken wave of people going the other way. Everyone was shouting or screaming. They were forced back toward the gallows. The scaffold was now swarming with Irish, some of whom were beating off the guards and dodging the lunges of the javelin men while others tried to cut down the bodies of their friends.

For no apparent reason the crush around Lizzie and Jay eased suddenly. She turned around and saw a gap between two big, rough-looking men. “Jay, come on!” she shouted, and darted between them. She turned to make sure Jay was behind her. Then the gap closed. Jay stepped forward to push his way through, but one of the men raised a hand threateningly. Jay flinched and stepped back, momentarily afraid. The hesitation was fatal: he was cut off from her. She saw his blond head above the crowd and fought to get back to him but she was stopped by a wall of people. “Jay!” she screamed. “Jay!” He shouted back but the crowd forced them farther apart. He was pushed in the direction of Tyburn Street while the crowd took her the opposite way, toward the park. A moment later he was lost from sight.

She was on her own. She gritted her teeth and turned her back on the scaffold. She faced a solid pack of people. She tried to push herself between a small man and a big-bosomed matron. “Keep your hands to yourself, young man,” the woman said. Lizzie persisted in pushing and managed to squeeze through. She repeated the process. She trod on the toes of a sour-faced man and he punched her in the ribs. She gasped with pain and pressed on.

She saw a familiar face and recognized Mack McAsh. He, too, was fighting his way through the crowd. “Mack!” she yelled gratefully. He was with the red-haired woman who had been at his side in Grosvenor Square. “Over here!” Lizzie cried. “Help me!” He saw her and recognized her. Then a tall man’s elbow jabbed her eye and for a few moments she could hardly see. When her vision returned to normal Mack and the woman had vanished.

Grimly she pressed on. Inch by inch she was getting away from the fracas at the gallows. With each step she found it a little easier to move. Within five minutes she was no longer squeezing between tightly packed people but passing through gaps several inches wide. Eventually she came up against the front wall of a house. She worked her way along to the corner of the building and stepped into an alley two or three feet wide.

She leaned against the house wall, catching her breath. The alley was foul and stank of human waste. Her ribs ached where she had been punched. She touched her face gingerly and found that the flesh around her eye was swelling.

She hoped Jay was all right. She turned around to look for him, and was startled to see two men staring at her.

One was middle-aged and unshaven with a fat belly, the other a youth of about eighteen. Something about their stares frightened her, but before she could move away they pounced. They grabbed her by the arms and threw her to the ground. They snatched her hat and the man’s wig she wore, pulled off her silver-buckled shoes, and went through her pockets with bewildering speed, taking her purse, her pocket watch and a handkerchief.

The older man shoved the spoils into a sack, stared at her for a moment, then said: “That’s a good coat—nearly new.”

They both bent over her again and began to pull off her coat and matching waistcoat. She struggled but all she achieved was to rip her shirt. They stuffed her garments into a sack. She realized her breasts were exposed. Hastily she covered herself with the shreds of her clothes but she was too late. “Hey, it’s a girl!” cried the younger man.

She scrambled to her feet but he grabbed her and held her.

The fat one stared at her. “And a pretty girl, too, by God,” he said. He licked his lips. “I’m going to fuck her,” he said decisively.

Seized with horror, Lizzie struggled violently, but she could not shake off the young man’s grip.

The youth looked back along the alley to the crowd in the street. “What, here?”

“Nobody’s looking this way, you young fool.” He stroked himself between the legs. “Get those breeches off her and let’s have a look.”

The boy threw her to the ground, sat on her heavily and started to pull off her breeches while the other man watched. Fear flooded Lizzie and she screamed at the top of her voice, but there was so much noise in the street she doubted whether anyone would hear her.

Then, suddenly, Mack McAsh appeared.

She glimpsed his face and a raised fist, then he struck the older one on the side of the head. The thief rocked sideways and staggered. Mack hit him again, and the man’s eyes rolled up into his head. Mack hit him a third time, and the man slumped and lay still.

The boy scrambled off Lizzie and tried to run away but she grabbed his ankle and tripped him. He measured his length on the ground. Mack picked him up and threw him against the house wall, then hit him on the chin with a punch that came up from below with all his weight behind it, and the boy fell unconscious on top of his partner-in-crime.

Lizzie got to her feet. “Thank God you were here!” she said fervently. Tears of relief filled her eyes. She threw her arms around him and said: “You saved me—thank you, thank you!”

He hugged her closely. “You saved me, once—when you pulled me out of the river.”

She held him tight and tried to stop shaking. She felt his hand behind her head, stroking her hair. In her breeches and shirt, with no petticoats to get in the way, she could feel the entire length of his body pressed against hers. He felt completely different from her husband. Jay was tall and supple, Mack short and massive and hard.

He shifted and looked at her. His green eyes were mesmerizing. The rest of his face seemed to blur. “You saved me, and I saved you,” he said with a wry smile. “I’m your guardian angel, and you’re mine.”

She began to calm down. She remembered that her shirt was torn and her breasts were bare. “If I were an angel, I wouldn’t be in your arms,” she said, and she made to detach herself from his embrace.

He looked into her eyes for a moment, then gave that wry smile again and nodded, as if agreeing with her. He turned away.

He bent and took the sack from the older thief’s limp hand. He took out her waistcoat and she put it on, buttoning it hastily to cover her nakedness. As soon as she felt safe again she began to worry about Jay. “I have to look for my husband,” she said as Mack helped her put her coat on. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.” He handed her the wig and hat, purse and watch and handkerchief.

“What about your red-haired friend?” she asked.

“Cora. I made sure she was safe before I came after you.”

“Did you?” Lizzie felt unreasonably irritated. “Are you and Cora lovers?” she said rudely.

Mack smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Since the day before yesterday.”

“My wedding day.”

“I’m having a wonderful time. Are you?”

A sharp retort came to her lips then, despite herself, she laughed. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said, and she leaned forward and kissed him briefly on the lips.

“I’d do it all over again for a kiss like that.”

She grinned at him then turned toward the street.

Jay stood there watching.

She felt terribly guilty. Had he seen her kiss McAsh? She guessed he had, by the thunderous look on his face. “Oh, Jay!” she said. “Thank heaven you’re all right!”

“What happened here?” he said.

“Those two men robbed me.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have come.” He took her by the arm to lead her out of the alley.

“McAsh knocked them down and rescued me,” she said.

“That’s no reason to kiss him,” said her husband.